The heart of a kingdom

There are all kinds of lies and prevarications in the aptly titled The Kiss of Deception, the new book from award-winning author Mary E. Pearson. Princess Arabella Celestine Idris Jezelia (or Lia, as she prefers to be called), First Daughter of the House of Morrighan, does not want to marry the unseen prince from a neighboring country. Lia—accompanied by her lady’s companion, Pauline—forsakes her parents’ wishes and runs away on her wedding day.

What's your problem?

A recent article by Cullen Murphy in The Atlantic Monthly lamented the fate of common knowledge. In a technologically advanced society, he muses that we trade a broad understanding of arts, history and civics for a detailed understanding of the minutiae of obscure languages used to program Web sites. Instead of memorizing Rudyard Kipling's "If," students now commit to memory the URLs...